Sunday, February 14, 2010

An Indoor Water Valentine

We traditionally prefer to spend our Valentine's Day weekend getting our redneck on at Caribbean Cove indoor water park.

In my opinion, indoor water parks are just one of those things that are automatically classified as redneck. Normal people in swimsuits, misbehaving children, questionably safe activities, hot dogs, arcade with prizes, inner tubes--these things, while quite normal in isolation, when put in combination are very redneck, and in a large, public, indoor swimming hole, are very, VERY redneck.

I'm quite at home here, as you might imagine.

As are we all. There is, traditionally, frolicking----and shopping at the nearby Goodwill Outlet Store (ask Sydney sometime about her brand-new-to-her two-foot-tall realistic-looking plastic pony), and miniature golfing, and a family screening of Dinotopia (we have gotten WAY into Dinotopia), and picnic lunches----because we can't afford Caribbean Cove and anything other than peanut butter all at the same time, and, of course, bucket-dumping:Since last year I posted a photo of Matt getting water dumped on him, I told him that I wanted to post a photo of him doing the same thing this year, so he dutifully went and stood under the bucket. But every time the bucket dumped, I'd yell out, "I didn't get it that time, Matty! Can you do it just one more time?" I managed to get him to stand under that bucket and get dumped on FOUR times before he caught on.

Five has been a big year for Willow so far--losing her first tooth, learning to read, learning to ride a bicycle, becoming a kindergartner--and this weekend was no exception to the string of heart-breakingly big firsts, because THIS year, unlike all the other years we've come to Caribbean Cove previously, Willow is over 42" tall, and thus she can ride the water slides:Trust me, she's in that photo, riding in the front of the inner tube that's also holding her father, but the splash is so big that you can't even see her.

when we visited a dallas-ft.worth version of this in december, cosmo and i were devastated over that height rule. this place had water slide tubes that went outside the building, and came back in. for cosmo, it's like a human marble maze, and terribly unfair that he can't ride on it with his mama.

Yeah, this is the one in Indy, but it's a chain so they have them the same all over, including French Lick and Branson, two other VERY rednecky places to visit if you're so inclined.

Even with Willow at a little over 42", she was, in my opinion, a little on the short side for the inner tube slide, which goes around and around and outside the building and down. For the two-person inner tubes, the heavier person sits in back and the lighter person sits in front, and the trick is for the adult in back to hook his/her ankles underneath the armpits of the kid in front, keeping her from slipping through the hole in the tube.

This was the fourth year that we've gone to Caribbean Cove this weekend, and I swear, every year as the girls get older it gets even more fun.

I got some potted tulips for Valentine's Day...I'm going to keep them in my classroom at work where there's plenty of sunlight. Any tips on caring for them? (How much do you water them, how much light do they need...)

I really need to cut out some small pictures for an art project and I just got my craft knife out, and it has gone not as sharp as it used to be. Blunt craft knifes don't work and are dangerous. And if not, how would I go about throwing it away without rubbish persons injuring themselves?

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The little pumpkinbears and I are currently accepting items for review. Handmade-related stuff gets reviewed at Crafting a Green World, while homeschool-related stuff gets reviewed right here at Craft Knife. Email me at jufinn at indiana dot edu for more info.

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You have my permission to use one photo and one text quote of up to two sentences in your own blog post, as long as you:

1) credit my photo and my text quote as belonging to me, and link back to my post that contains it.

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Occasionally, I may post a photo of a child who is not my own. You do not have my permission to re-post any photo that contains an image of a child not my own, whether or not the child's face can be seen.

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